


In Defiance of the Void

by EradiKate



Series: The Scarlet Band [3]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 19:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21166748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EradiKate/pseuds/EradiKate
Summary: "The invention of a new game."Charlotte has fears, Fenris tries to comfort her.





	In Defiance of the Void

A ribbon, a blade of grass, a copper, or a knife, it doesn’t matter to Hawke. She’s always playing with something, as though her hands can’t be still for even a minute. If by some miracle they are, her mouth is moving at speeds that Fenris can hardly register, let alone respond to. Isabela is the only one who can keep up, though the rest do their best to follow.

It’s not necessarily disconcerting, at least not on the surface. Merrill’s ball of twine mysteriously winds itself and loses its knots, Aveline’s armor is always polished, and Sebastian has more than once remarked that his arrows never seem to lose their fletchings. It seems to be a nervous habit and nothing more, and her friends have dismissed it as harmless nonsense.

Fenris knows better. Charlotte is afraid of nothing–she once said as much to the Knight-Captain, which Varric and Anders took as a good joke. But she is afraid–terrified of stillness, of emptiness, and so she chatters and fidgets as a ward against her fear. He knows he cannot completely banish the spectres from her life, and so he invents a new game.

When you are scared, he tells her, hold my hand. When it is still, feel my pulse and count the blisters on my palm. I am here and I will stand with you in defiance of the Void. Hold my hand and know that yours will never again be empty.


End file.
